PATIENTS are dying in corridors and going undiscovered for hours, a damning new report by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) reveals today.

Some sick people are being left to soil themselves, according to the body’s survey of nurses in Britain’s hospitals.

The report found that 67 per cent of nurses are delivering care every day in overcrowded or unsuitable places, while nearly 20 per cent said it was happening weekly.

More than nine in 10 said patient care and safety was compromised.

The report calls for immediate government action to end “corridor care,” where patients are being left to sit for days in chairs and piling up in corridors due to a lack of beds and staff.

It also highlighted delays to treatment and the elderly being “cared for in very inhumane and third-world conditions.”

Patients were regularly treated in bathrooms, shower areas, cloakrooms, car parks and viewing rooms, where families visit dead relatives, the RCN found.

One nurse in south-east England said: “A patient died in the corridor but wasn’t discovered for hours.”

Another said: “I am unable to toilet patients appropriately and often some will be incontinent and sit in faeces [or] urine until there is a space to provide personal care.”

A nurse in Wales added: “It feels like you can’t give any of your patients the full care they need and deserve.

“It’s undignified, there’s no privacy… It makes me really sad to be a nurse in these times.”

RCN chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger said that staff were leaving because “they cannot do it any more.”

She said: “It’s become normal to put patients in all sorts of areas that I can promise you, being a chief nurse for nearly 10 years before this job, prior to Covid, would have been seen as abhorrent and totally unacceptable.”

Prof Ranger said the NHS did not have enough beds or nurses to meet demand and that the issue was occurring throughout the year, adding: “I really want to make sure that flu is not used as the excuse for this.”

Ministers must acknowledge the “scale of the problem,” she said, adding that it could have been predicted.

Noting that nursing has the largest number of vacancies, Prof Ranger said: “You cannot improve the care for patients unless you improve the care for nurses.

“We can now categorically say patients are dying in this situation.”

RCN Wales executive director Helen Whyley added: “Corridor care is a symptom of a system under immense pressure.

“It’s time to invest in our NHS, support our healthcare staff, and prioritise the well-being of patients.”

Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Dr John Puntis said the report “exposes the tragic reality for both patients and staff in an NHS starved of investment and therefore unable to meet rising demand.”

He told the Star: “One thing that New Labour got right was the recognition that increased funding for NHS staff and facilities was the best way of reducing waiting lists and improving public satisfaction.

“Worn-out staff struggling to give care and dignity to patients will register the promise by the Prime Minister that they will ‘once again be able to give the standard of care they desperately want to’ and ponder on just when that day might come.”

NHS Providers interim chief executive Saffron Cordery said the testimonies in the report were “harrowing,” adding that more needs to be done to “minimise incidents of corridor care.”

A Welsh government spokesperson said the nationwide issue “highlight the importance of accessing the right care in the right place such as minor injury units and pharmacies.”

Yesterday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Commons that he could not promise “there won’t be patients treated in corridors next year.”

“It will take time to undo the damage that has been done to our NHS, but that is the ambition this government has,” he said.

The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for comment.